Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) is evident in the home, office and commercial setting and is now making an impact in the educational environment, primarily tertiary education and living.
Education is becoming more high tech with the use of laptops and handheld computers present in the classroom. In addition the internet plays a large supporting role in today’s educational environment. The involvement of WiFi in the classroom looks to aid students with real time streaming. One proposed idea (Bergamo, Cesana, Gerla, Maniezzo and Yao, 2003) is the Wireless Caption Delivery Scheme (WCD). Essentially it would free students (who have a portable device such as a laptop or PDA that was WiFi compatible) from note taking and allowing them to concentrate on the discussion given by the lecturer. The lecture would also have a headset with an enabled device running speech recognition software. Via the headset, the lectures voice is captured and converted into a text file by the speech recognition software, then transmitted to students with the enabled devices. WCD would assist learning and be a helpful tool to International students and hearing impaired students, whom have otherwise limited note taking ability (Maniezzo et al 2003).
The use of WiFi in the classroom appears beneficial to the learning process, though some question the change in behaviour and interaction within the classroom setting. Students would have the opportunity to interact with the teacher, others students and outsiders, and while this may be a positive aspect it could also pose distraction and control challenges for teachers (Bhave 2002).
Over 400 universities in America are using WiFi networks to access the internet and local campus networks services (M2 Communications 2004). American universities are already proposing major changes in university lifestyle for their students. As WiFi connections will become available all over campuses and the popularity for handheld computers and laptops increases, students will be able to access information about their subjects and be updated from the university about events relevant to them (Sutherland 2002).
WiFi still has its implications within the educational environment. Universities have to create policies to accommodate for the use of WiFi and the security of transferring confidential data (Sutherland 2002).
Bergamo, P, Cesana, M, Gerla, M, Yao, K & Maniezzo, D 2003, Real-Time Caption Streaming over WiFi Network, Computer Science Department and Electrical Engineering Department, University of California Los Angeles.
Bhave, M 2002, Classrooms with WiFi, The Journal, viewed 20 October 2004, http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A4218.cfm.
M2 Communications 2004, ‘Bluesocket Adds Florida State…’, Wireless News, October 19, p. 1.
Sutherland, E 2002, ‘Universities Graduate to WiFi’, viewed 20 October 2004, http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/print.php/1150721
Jillian Hodgson 09:52, 29 Oct 2004 (EST)
